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3Gb not much RAM so little left for other stuff anyway, would prob just crash your computer easier!
I found LAA programs like Carrara good on my upgraded to 4Gb laptop and I did the 3Gig switch but when I only had 2Gb, no good.

Yeah, it's hard to say -- with nothing running, see how much memory you have available. After Windows itself and whatever else you normally have running (including video card memory if you don't have a discrete video card), if it isn't significantly over 2GB, the LAA switch won't make much difference.

Yeah, it's hard to say -- with nothing running, see how much memory you have available. After Windows itself and whatever else you normally have running (including video card memory if you don't have a discrete video card), if it isn't significantly over 2GB, the LAA switch won't make much difference.

Use the maximum amount quoted...as a number of laptop chipsets will dynamically assign video memory, up to the stated maximum. But if that amount isn't available...bad things happen. So, basically, the way I figure it out is to remove the video memory at the start...just cut the installed memory by whatever the maximum video allocation is. If there's 3 GB installed and there's 512 MB allocated for video, then I count 2.5 GB as the installed amount. Which basically means that LAA is not worth it...because Windows will use most of that other half gig by itself.

Yeah, it's hard to say -- with nothing running, see how much memory you have available. After Windows itself and whatever else you normally have running (including video card memory if you don't have a discrete video card), if it isn't significantly over 2GB, the LAA switch won't make much difference.

Use the maximum amount quoted...as a number of laptop chipsets will dynamically assign video memory, up to the stated maximum. But if that amount isn't available...bad things happen. So, basically, the way I figure it out is to remove the video memory at the start...just cut the installed memory by whatever the maximum video allocation is. If there's 3 GB installed and there's 512 MB allocated for video, then I count 2.5 GB as the installed amount. Which basically means that LAA is not worth it...because Windows will use most of that other half gig by itself.

I would have to second what is being said here above. Every system I've ever seen with just 3GB's of ram has a video card built into the motherboard that uses system memory for video memory. So if that's the case for your system LAA won't make much of a difference. Now let's assume though that you have all 3 GB's of memory to use because you have a seperate video card with it's own memory. In that case LAA will help some but not to it's full potential which is to allow Bryce to use about 3.5GB's. All that being said even if as described above the video is built in and uses 512k of memory for video that leaves you 2.5GB's and Bryce on it's own only accesses 2GB's. So using LAA would help some but the difference would be fairly small.

Yeah, it's hard to say -- with nothing running, see how much memory you have available. After Windows itself and whatever else you normally have running (including video card memory if you don't have a discrete video card), if it isn't significantly over 2GB, the LAA switch won't make much difference.

Use the maximum amount quoted...as a number of laptop chipsets will dynamically assign video memory, up to the stated maximum. But if that amount isn't available...bad things happen. So, basically, the way I figure it out is to remove the video memory at the start...just cut the installed memory by whatever the maximum video allocation is. If there's 3 GB installed and there's 512 MB allocated for video, then I count 2.5 GB as the installed amount. Which basically means that LAA is not worth it...because Windows will use most of that other half gig by itself.

I would have to second what is being said here above. Every prebuilt system or laptop I've ever seen with just 3GB's of ram has a video card built into the motherboard that uses system memory for video memory. So if that's the case for your system LAA won't make much of a difference. Now let's assume though that you have all 3 GB's of memory to use because you have a seperate video card with it's own memory. In that case LAA will help some but not to it's full potential which is to allow Bryce to use about 3.5GB's. All that being said even if as described above the video is built in and uses 512k of memory for video that leaves you 2.5GB's and Bryce on it's own only accesses 2GB's. So using LAA would help some but the difference would be fairly small.

As for how to use LAA you put it in the directory where the Bryce executable is and run the LAA executable. A small dialog box opens that asks what executable you want to apply it to with a button you click that lets you search for and select the execuatable (Bryce.exe) to apply it to. Then below that it has a box you check if you want that executable you selected to use more then 2GB's. After checking that there is a button at the bottom of the dialog box that says "save" click that and you're done and Bryce will now be able to use more then 2GB's up to the maximum of 3.5GB's (approximately).

Now typically when someone starts looking into using LAA it's because they're getting out of memory errors. There are some things you can do to minimize the memory error. One of the things that gets people the most is the undo buffer. I believe the undo buffer allows you to step back thru up to 20 changes. Once you've made 20 or more adjustments your undo buffer is full and tying up however much memory that uses. The only way to clear it is to save the file and then close Bryce. Once you do that the buffer is cleared and you can open up Bryce again and have access to all of your 2-3GB's of memory.

Another thing that causes the out of memory error is importing objects that have high resolution textures such as any of the "elite" series of characters for V4/V5 or M4/M5. Also the newer figures such as Genesis, V4, V5, M4, M5 are all fairly detailed meshes and they also use up alot of memory. So wherever possible avoid high res textures (they only make a big difference on close ups) also if you can use lower resolution figures such as V3 or M3 or V3 Reduced Resolution or M3 Reduced Resolution. If you simply must use a certain texture that is high resolution because it has a feature such as a tattooo that you need then import the figure with no texture applied, copy the texture you want to use into a temporary folder. Then use a program like Photoshop or Paintshop Pro to lower the resolution of that texture. For example one of the elite textures measures 4000 x 4000 so you might reduce that to 2000 x 2000 or even 1280 x 1280. Once reduced, save the texture and then apply it to the figure in Bryce using the material editor. It should still apply properly but now it won't look so impressive on close up but at a distance you should hardly be able to tell the difference and it'll be using less memory.

Of course such work arounds can be kind of a pain to keep on top of all the time so the better solution when/if possible would be to upgrade your memory to at least 4GB's preferably more, that way you should be able to get the maximum benefit of the LAA utility.

Thanks for the input folks. The laptop has a dedicated Graphics card. One of the reasons I went with Dell was that I was able to spec some aspects of the comp myself. I could look at upgrading the ram but then I'm also going to have to reinstall the OS which is Vista downgraded to XP as far as I know XP can only use 3gig of ram anyway.

Reality: XP can use the full 4 GB of RAM that 32 bit allows...but it reserves 1 GB (or so) for it's own uses, effectively limiting the available RAM to somewhere between 2.5 and 3.25 GB, which for the most part, is little or no different than what is available at 3GB.

Thanks mjc, I'll check out adding some xtra ram when I get home from work. I was led to believe that 3gig was the limit and there was no point in adding more but if I'm able to bump ram to 4gig so much the better.

Before I updated to Slackware 13.37 a while back, I ran this machine dual boot...XP SP3 and Slackware 13.1 with 4 GBs. XP never had a complaint and always reported the 4 GBs with around 2.5 GB 'available'. For a test, I pulled one of the 2GB sticks and put a single back in...at 3 GB XP reported the full 3 GB and about 2.25 GB 'available'. So, yes, it could 'use' the extra...but it was all reserved.